Job Market Lowdown for New CS Grads

What do San Francisco, Nashville, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Chicago all have in common? Employers hiring entry-level techies. That’s according to a recent survey released by AfterCollege, a Web site that connects students, faculty, alumni and employers. The site measured job postings to determine the top 20 cities for new grads and IT.

(Note there are more than 500 entry-level jobs listed here on Dice, spread across the U.S.,and you can find out specific information about tech market conditions in many cities, by checking out the our local market reports.)

According to the results of a student survey conducted between February and April 2009 by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, less than 20 percent of 2009 grads who’ve applied for a job actually have one this year. Apparently – and not surprisingly – 2009 grads are disheartened by the economic conditions and more are electing to go directly to grad school. Maybe that glumness is also why fewer 2009 graduates have sought out jobs: Just 59 percent of the class of 2009 has started their job search. About 64 percent of the class of 2007 and two-thirds of the class of 2008 had started looking at about this time of those years.

Computer engineering graduates posted a 1.8 percent increase, pushing their average salary offer to $61,017. Experiencing similar increases were civil engineering grads (up 1.7 percent for an average of $51,793) and mechanical engineering graduates (up 1.6 percent for an average of $58,749).

Computer science majors didn’t fare as well, losing 3.6 percent off their average, bringing their current starting salary offer to $57,693. One reason for the tumble: There were fewer offers for software design and development positions reported in Spring 2009 than in Spring 2008, and the average offer to computer science grads for these positions fell 11 percent from $65,379 in Spring 2008 to $58,837 currently.

YOUR CAREER. YOUR PATH.

Author Bio

Leslie Stevens-Huffman is a business and careers writer based in Southern California. She has more than 20 years’ experience in the staffing industry and has been writing blog posts, sample resumes and providing sage career advice to the IT professionals in our Dice Community since 2006. Leslie has a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism from the University of Southern California.